Tag: .40 S&W

My go-to FFL, Best Buy Surplus, has always had a steady supply of LE trade-in GLOCKs. Suffice it to say, they’re fans of the genre. Last month they received a shipment of over 300 of these pistols — mostly G22s (.40 S&W), but also a lot of G21s (.45 ACP) — and asked me if I wanted to pick one at random and check it out. What can one expect from a used, ex-LEO GLOCK? Let’s find out . . .

The more I learn about guns, the more I realize I have to learn. Case in point: mouse guns. I come to the party from the (initial) point of view of a large caliber fanboy. Give me .45 ACP or give me (the likelihood of) death was my frame-of-reference. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still convinced that .45ACP is a superior caliber for my needs, but I’m coming around to the idea that there’s room in my arsenal for other calibers, and by extension, other guns outside the family of 1911s. Hence my growing interest in the lowly mouse gun.

Okay campers, it’s time for the ‘red meat’ portion of the interview. Fasten your seat belts…it’s gonna be a bumpy flight, as we tackle Gabe Suarez, flying with guns, and self-defense products versus the TSA. If you’ve not caught the other parts of the series, do yourself a favor, and start at the beginning. Or if you missed Part II, click here, or Part III, here. And now, back to the questions from TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia…

So we’ve reached the half-way point in my 30 day odyssey in carrying a firearm concealed on my person. And I think it’s a good a time as any to take stock in what I’ve learned. You know the bit (that I’ve cited before) about the different speeches: the speech you plan to give, the one you write, the one you deliver, the one you think you deliver, and the one the audience actually heard? Well my experiences with conceal carry are a lot like that. Let me explain…

Having grown up around numerous firearms (most every member of my extended family is a gun owner), it was never really a question of if I would purchase my own gun, but when. Even though I had obtained a concealed carry permit in my early twenties, I didn’t bother purchasing a gun until I was 26 and worked in an extremely dangerous part of town. After doing a bit of research, I decided I wanted something with more capacity, stopping power, and safety than the .38 caliber revolvers most of my family carried. But I didn’t want to break the bank buying one. Beating the rush by exactly ten days, I walked into a local gun store and paid just over $400 for a brand-new Smith & Wesson Model 410 pistol on September 1, 2001.Read More